Studyfinds.org reported on a poll commissioned by Wisetail, a software company, and conducted by OnePoll. The poll asked 2,000 Americans about working from home during the pandemic and found that many have embraced life free of commuting, nosy coworkers, and even getting dressed for work.
The survey found that 39 percent of workers said they would take a cut in salary to continue working from home.
TREND FORECAST: Commercial real estate brokers may tremble at the results of this recent poll. This is part of the New ABnormal, where more people will be doing much less commuting than they did before the COVID War.
In our 20 October article, “WORK FROM HOME = CITY REAL ESTATE DOWN,” we reported how the ease of working from home is going to put immense strain on the commercial real estate sector, especially in once-thriving metropolitan areas such as New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.
TRENDPOST: The best is still the worst. Imagine, just one year ago, before politicians launched the COVID War, it would be “good news” that Dallas is wining the “go back to the office” trend with just 35 percent of employees back inside office buildings, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ, which cited Kastle Systems, a nationwide security company that tracks those ubiquitous office access cards, reported that out of ten major cities in the U.S., only about 20 to 25 percent of office workers have returned to their cubicles.
TRENDPOST: Executives are weighing options as remote working is becoming a reality, considering employee compensation and tax costs for remote workers in different states.
Companies like Facebook said they would gather information from their employees’ VPNs to determine their location for tax purposes. One of the issues is concerns that employees might not be honest when claiming they left the state. The Wall Street Journal reported that these companies and workers have to pay the appropriate taxes for these positions. The report said Facebook decided against tracking the employees.
The report also said Facebook informed some employees that their location could affect their salary if they move to locations with different labor costs.
Jimmy Etheredge, the North American CEO of the consulting firm Accenture PLC, told the Journal there are a number of companies weighing pay changes for employees who leave pricey cities.
“Almost all of them have a cost-of-living element in their compensation,” he told the paper. “As they’re thinking through this future of work that may involve more remote working, that may involve talent in places they did not necessarily have before, they will look to make adjustments.”
